Day 2 & 3 in Haiti
It started like a normal day. Truck packed, on the road, nice weather, wind in your hair, except that we were headed into the disaster zone of the effects of a hurricane and the onset of an approaching one. Hanna and Ike, not pleased to meet you and neither is the country of Haiti.
Our truck was one of five on route to Gonaïves with supplies of purified drinking water, food, clothes, medical supplies, generator and diesel. After two hours of beautiful landscape, we began to see some remnants of the flooding. Houses with a few feet of water and flooded fields. There are two routes into Gonaïves, one was entirely under water and the second was rough but we made it through. When we entered the outskirts of the city at 12:30 pm, Father Rick, Nebez and Rafael met us on the highway into town. They had flown in the night before by UN helicopter and slept on the Sisters of Charity roof.
As we drove into the town, people were leaving in droves, 10,000 according to the NY Times. Everything was covered in mud. The majority of the streets were flooded and as we entered the town square all the streets were flooded. Many families were living on their roofs with a tarp protecting their belongings. Bridges collapsed, cars and trucks were flipped over, mud and water filled the homes. When we arrived at the Sisters of Charity, their street outside their compound was not flooded, but once you entered their gates, it was 2 feet thick of mud. The water had been up to the first floor roof and a handful of their sick elderly drowned because they were standing on benches and they lost their balance.
When the other trucks arrived, we split up and half of us went to a local parish to distribute 21,000 servings of drinking water. To unload the other trucks at the Sisters we had to walk through the mud carrying the bags. At 6:30 pm it was dark and started to thunder. Hurricane Ike was approaching but according to the weather that morning it was north of Haiti, aiming for Cuba. The problem was that Hanna was a tropical storm status when it touched Haiti and it inflicted so much flooding damage; much of this is due to the area's deforestation.
When the generator was unloaded and we hit the road with our caravan, it was 7:30 pm raining and dark. Our five trucks left Gonaïves to make the estimated five hour drive back to Port au-Prince. Two hours into the drive, there was a delay due to other trucks stuck in front of us. We were stopped for about one hour. It was raining lightly but nothing extreme. Each hour that passed, the rain increased. At 2 am, we arrived at the river at Mirebalais. It was raging and with the heavy rain and thunder there was nothing we could do besides wait it out. Our truck had seven people in it and after being tired from a long day we all fell asleep. I was nudged between the driver and Fr. Rick. At 5 am, the rain finally stopped and it started to get light, but the river was the same. There was no way back and no way forward.
As the neighbors began to wake up, more and more people came out to assess the river. Music started to blare from a shack and Father told us that it was voodoo music. He said if the voodoo gods can’t help us then maybe the catholic ones can. He has a good sense of humor. Within two hours, the guys in our group started to gather the bystanders and started to wade in the river. They began moving large boulders and figuring out the best way across. At 9 am Fr. Rick told myself, and three others, that we should cross the river and that he called someone to pick us up on the other side. We waded in and held hands as we crossed with the water up to the tops of our thighs.
As we were waiting on the right side of the river that guys worked especially hard to create a path across. They were able to get one truck across even though it took them 1 hour. At times they were digging lots of mud out from the bottom of the truck. At 10 am a bulldozer arrived. It cleared a better path and our four other trucks got across and by 11 am we were on our way home.
Father then took us all out to eat at the local deli for a burger and fries. There were about 15 of us. When we returned, I never felt to relived to take a shower and to sleep horizontal in a bed.
Unfortunately Ike slammed Gonaïves again and many other parts of Haiti like Cabaret, where 50 children drowned (we went there yesterday). Port au Prince had some flooding as well but the hospital where I am staying in Tabarre is fine. The orphanage in Kenscoff did have some damage with the roof blowing off the school, fallen trees, and leaks.
I’m not sure if it was the voodoo gods or the catholic ones, but we were all very relived to make it back safety. Sadly, the Sisters were flooded again. The water up to their second floor and the have to start the whole clean up process over again. The government postponed the start of the school year one month due to all the misplaced families.
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